Seven things to know about Alibaba’s huge IPO

BenEisen

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — It was a historic day for Alibaba Group’s CEO Jack Ma. The e-commerce company he founded 15 years ago surged in its first day of trading on Friday, making it one of the largest IPOs in history. Here’s what you need to know about the Chinese e-commerce company’s blockbuster debut:

Stock price action: Shares
BABA, +1.02%
priced at $68 on Thursday, but shares opened at $92.70, due to demand. The stock closed at $93.89 — a 38% return based on Thursday’s pricing. The gain was above the 26% average one-day pop for U.S.-listed technology and internet IPOs this year, according to Dealogic. It’s also the best first-day pop for an IPO over $10 billion since 2008.

Market cap: At Friday’s close, Alibaba’s value was $231.44 billion. As the fifteenth largest US. publicly traded company, it’s bigger than such high-profile companies as J.P. Morgan, Facebook, and IBM.

Trading volume: Volume of 270.89 million shares made “BABA” the most actively traded stock on Friday, even though it only opened up for trading around noon.

Ma’s windfall: Alibaba founder Jack Ma owns the most stock in the company. After selling a small amount of his holdings, his remaining 193.4 million shares were worth $18.05 billion, based on Friday’s closing stock price, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Intraday Data provided by SIX Financial Information and subject to terms of use. Historical and current end-of-day data provided by SIX Financial Information. All quotes are in local exchange time. Real-time last sale data for U.S. stock quotes reflect trades reported through Nasdaq only. Intraday data delayed at least 15 minutes or per exchange requirements.